Pet Sematary's Ending Explained

If there's any human experience more universal than love, it's loss. And that's the exact flavor of optimism explored in the latest film to be adapted from the works of prolific horror writer Stephen King. Pet Sematary, an adaptation of King's 1983 novel of the same name, reanimates the classic horror story that was last explored on the big screen in a 1989 film that received very mixed reviews.  

In recent years, another adaptation of one of King's stories, 2017's It, broke box office records by earning more money in its opening weekend of any horror movie ever. With a huge success still fresh in audience's minds, many were anxiously awaiting this adaptation to see how it would measure up. 

Pet Sematary opened to relatively good reviews, largely due to a few key themes and moments of crucial character development stood out and really elevated the film. In this piece, we'll be scrutinizing those themes and seeing just how well those moments of development panned out. This is the ending of Pet Sematary explained. Naturally, spoilers ahead!

The film's protagonist, Louis Creed, is shown to be blunt and realistic. After the death of the family cat Church, Louis has to break the news to his 8-year-old daughter. For him, sugarcoating the grizzly death of the beloved family cat with lies like "He ran away" is not only disingenuous but something he views as an unhealthy approach to parenting.  The film explains that Louis is skeptical of any afterlife and is against planting the idea of one into his daughter's head. In this way, Louis is shown to have a strictly rational mindset when coping with death. He is seemingly unwilling to make assumptions without solid, verifiable facts.

This rationalism is what makes Louis' decision to upset the natural balance so surprising. Despite seeing the negative tradeoff of bringing a living thing back to life, Louis abandons common sense in an act of desperation to reincarnate his daughter. Initially, Louis achieves his goal, and Ellie is raised from the dead and returns home.

Even though Louis makes a costly mistake in his decision to spend more time with his daughter than is natural, he does come full circle and regain a degree of level-headedness in his final moments. As he fights with his daughter in the Pet Sematary, he faces all that his decision has cost him and decides to take Jud's advice about dead being better to heart, making the painful decision to end Ellie's un-life. 

Unlike Louis and Rachel, Jud has been living with the knowledge of the magical burial ground for most of his life. As a boy, his childhood dog Biffer was mercifully put down by his father after cuts he got from walking over barbed wire became infected. Distraught, Jud made the fateful decision to bury Biffer in the land beyond the sematary. However, the dog was not the same when he returned, and his father had to put the dog down once more after Biffer became aggressive.

Despite having this experience as a child, Jud claims to believe that Biffer's aggression was because of a longstanding mean streak. He believed bringing the dead back could stop Ellie from grieving the loss of her cat the way he'd done for Biffer, but after hearing about how Church changed after he was brought back, Jud is able to realize that the dead may come back in the same bodies, but they're certainly changed by their experience. 

In spite of the seemingly complete narrative surrounding Biffer, Jud's personal journey is a bit of a mystery, since his wife comes back through Ellie to haunt him and alludes to grievances that remain unexplained in the film. This added story element introduces a sizable wrinkle to the image of the wise man doomed to see his advice go unheeded. 

Pet Sematary places a heavy focus on death and the emotions associated with it. The grief of losing a loved one is showcased in the main characters: Rachel and Louis grieve for their daughter, and while she is alive, Ellie experiences the loss of a pet. In these examples, the film manages to explore all of the five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. For Louis, his grief is expressed by denial and, at some points, anger. He does not accept that his daughter is gone forever and decides to resurrect her, showcasing classic denial. Ellie shows a depressed disposition after Church is left in the road by Louis when he tries to get rid of the undead creature.

When Rachel talks about her sister, she starts to tell Louis that if she had only brought her sister her meal in person that things would be different. At this point, Rachel shows that she's stuck in the bargaining stage of grief. However, once she's confronted with an undead daughter trying to kill herself and Gage, her demeanor is much more in line with an angry form of grief.

Jud seems to be in a stage of acceptance saying that what is dead is best left dead by the time the Creed family meets him. The film frames this as the desirable mindset to have for lost loved ones, perfectly mimicking the five stages.

Louis may have revived his lost daughter, but the ritual doesn't come without a heavy price. When Ellie returns from the grave, she's a shell of her former self. The once-outgoing girl is now reserved, serious, and most of all, ominous. Very quickly, Ellie's behavior turns violent, and it becomes apparent that the girl who returned may look like Ellie, but the cheery, lovable child she once was is now gone.

Pet Sematary is abundantly clear in its message: The laws of nature should not be broken. As much as we might want to bring back a deceased friend or family member, the dead are meant to stay dead. Because Louis is unable to accept the loss of his daughter, everything begins to spiral out of control. He is so focused on his grief that he forgets the simple fact that she can never truly return. Had he come to terms with his loss, he and his family would have been able to cope and regain some amount normalcy in their everyday lives. Instead, the inability to face reality leads to destruction. The film showcases the perils of avoiding hard conversations and even harder emotional challenges. 

With many horror films that gain even a modicum of financial success, studios tend to expand on those titles and create new series with multiple entries. This trend can be seen in most major horror films of the past few decades from Scream, to Saw, to Paranormal Activity, and The Conjuring, just to name a few notable examples. With that in mind, there is no reason why studio heads wouldn't want to see another Pet Sematary movie if this one does well at the box office. The only thing getting in the way of that plan? The film's rather resolute ending. 

Getting around this obstacle is something that the film's producer, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, has discussed in an interview with Consequence of Sound. According to di Bonaventura, there may be room to make more Pet Sematary films in the form of prequels. There are a lot of stories that could be explored in the town, from local legends to experiences like Jud had as a boy with Biffer, to exploring the sinister Wendigo in more depth. The town of Ludlow is filled with more than enough history to supply filmmakers with interesting material to make a prequel.